Thursday, March 31, 2016

Give Vietnam Blue Water Navy Veterans their presumptive rights - Add Your Signature!

The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Association just posted an update on the petition you signed, U.S. House of Representatives: Give the Vietnam Blue Water Navy Veterans their presumptive rights.


We're at 60,000 signatures and climbing!

The Health side is a problem. But where is the root cause of the problem? The very top echelon of the VA management supported by the Veterans Benefits Administration. When money gets tight the VBA goes into action. Deny all Blue Water Navy claims, call for an investigation (loosely called research) to see if the burn pits were really harmful to one's health, A delaying tactic. Don't bring up the 500,000 patients treated for COPD each year because of the chemicals used in everyday military life. Restrict the claims on LeJuene water benefits to a bare minimum. Ensure that required records needed to prove a claim are not available. They have had so many years of practice at it, they're experts. Although I am repeating hear say, but one top executive was purported to say, if you bring me one expert to testify in your favor, I'll get ten to testify against your claim. So it's all money, show me the money and anything is possible.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Oregon veteran to take Agent Orange health issues to Washington, D.C.

Tom Owen doesn’t have side effects from being exposed to the defoliant commonly called Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam, but he is fighting for the thousands of families affected by the toxic chemical.

Owen will travel to Washington, D.C., next Wednesday and has a full schedule of meetings planned with members of the Senate and House, talking about the health effects caused by exposure to toxins and lobbying for the passing of House Resolution 1769 and Senate Bill 901.
“These bills would direct the Department of Veterans Affairs to allocate a portion of the money spent annually on research issues for the study of health effects caused by Agent Orange and other toxic chemicals,” Owen said. “It’s not just the veterans, it’s the health effects of their children and grandchildren. This stuff affects DNA.”
Owen said about $250 million is budgeted each year for research projects.
Owen will travel with John Birch, Region 8 director of the Vietnam Veterans of America, and they will meet Mokie Porter, communications director for the Vietnam Veterans of America.
Owen said 183 members of Congress and 28 Senators have signed on to support the bills.
“This is really about future generations, not so much us old guys,” Owen said. “We don’t want our current military men and women, or their children, affected by this stuff.”

Dear Editor: Support HB 1769 and SB 901

The purpose of this letter is to urge the general public and veterans to call their state representatives and senators in support of House Bill 1769 and Senate Bill 901, the Toxic Research Act of 2015.
Between 1945 and 1962, about 450,000 servicemen were exposed to ionizing radiation from atmosphere testing of nuclear weapons. Many scientist state that ionizing radiation can cause any cancer, but the VA only recognizes certain cancers.
During the Cold War, many servicemen, mostly Army, were exposed to chemical and biological agents to test their effectiveness, and then given antidotes. Many of their health problems today could be results of those test.
The wide use of Agent Orange in Vietnam and elsewhere has proven to be devastating to servicemen and the people of Vietnam.

Monday, March 28, 2016

Agent Orange and the battle of GMOs

WHILE in Hawke's Bay on Tuesday and Wednesday for a funeral, I saw an odd connection between the family member who's passed on and a local campaign that appears to be developing strong grassroots support.
The funeral was for my brother-in-law, Arthur Frederickson, who died after a very long illness, the roots of which go back 55 years.
Arthur was a lovely bloke and although he trained as a professional factory inspector for what was then the Labour Department, his heart lay in the New Zealand Army and many years of his life were spent as a soldier. This commitment was almost certainly the cause of his many years of ill-health. Sometime in the 1960s, Arthur volunteered to be part of the New Zealand Army contingent that went to fight in Vietnam.
This was not a cushy number; he was a sergeant in an artillery group that was very close to the frontline.
With the enemy, known as the Viet Cong, making use of the dense jungle for hit and run raids against the American forces and their allies, the Americans decided that a quick way of cramping the Viet Cong's jungle tactics would be to destroy the jungle.
To implement this strategy, more than 72 million litres of defoliant was sprayed over 1.8 million ha of Vietnam in the 10 years of the war. The most widely used was named "Agent Orange", after the identifying stripe on the barrels. Arthur and his comrades, being deployed close to the battle front as artillerymen were doused with this malign concoction on a regular basis.

The good, worrisom aspects of the manipulation of genes

Genetics is a difficult topic to understand. The very word itself will turn some readers off and make them put down this column before going further.
Long ago people understood that animals could be bred to make certain characteristics stronger and for those characteristics to be maintained. That was simple. Put two animals or plants together and an exchange of sexual material would do the trick, so to speak.
Moving on down the line a bit, we humans, as the supposedly most intelligent beings on the planet, thought that the genetic stuff was concentrated in the center of cells called the nucleus. Nothing about genes could change that. That idea has changed. Other parts of cells have genes as well. Techniques have been developed that enable us to change genes. Some people think that messing with Mother Nature is a bad thing. (Where is Father Nature in all of this? I don't know. Perhaps he left, leaving genetics as a field of single parenting.)
Now there is a rapidly growing field of genetic manipulation. Scientists can change genes. There is growing fear that changing genes to make things better is dangerous. Some of the fear is based on religion, with people simple saying that humans cannot play the role of the creator. That notion is contrary to the teaching that the creator made humankind in his or her image. If that much is true then humankind can use genetic modification to the benefit of itself. The fact is that it already has done that.

“Weed Whackers, Monsanto, glyphosate, and the war on invasive species”

Harper’s Magazine describes itself: “the oldest general-interest monthly in America, explores the issues that drive our national conversation, through long-form narrative journalism and essays…”  Harper’s has just published an article by Andrew Cockburn, an experienced investigative journalist with an impressive track-record of informing the public of some of the darkest secrets in our country. The article is available here:  Cockburn – Weed Whackers

Hypothyroidism, bladder cancer, and multiple myeloma linked to Agent Orange herbicide exposure

Hypothyroidism, bladder cancer, and multiple myeloma have been linked to Agent Orange herbicide exposure. On the other hand, the new findings do not support that spina bifida, a birth defect, may occur in offspring of veterans who served during the Vietnam War and were exposed to Agent Orange.
The report is 1,115 pages long and outlines health complications associated with exposure to Agent Orange, along with other herbicides during the Vietnam War. The findings of the link between bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, and Agent Orange came from a large study of Korean War veterans who also served during the Vietnam War. On the other hand, spina bifida factor was downgraded, as there was not enough supporting evidence that Agent Orange increased the risk of spina bifida.
The authors wrote, “[The inclusion of] spina bifida in the limited or suggestive category of association was based on preliminary findings from [an ongoing Air Force study]. However, to date, a complete analysis of the data from that study for neural tube defects has not been published … [and] no subsequent studies have found increases in spina bifida with exposure to components of the herbicides sprayed in Vietnam.”
Bladder cancer and hypothyroidism were upgraded, as more evidence had come to light to reveal a stronger link, and Parkinson-like symptoms were also added.
Nearly 2.6 million Americans served in Vietnam who could have all been exposed to Agent Orange during their years in service. The herbicide was sprayed across 20 percent of the country’s jungles where enemy troops could hide. Many veterans are still trying to get recognized as having been exposed to Agent Orange even on the ship or plane. Retired Navy Commander John Wells said, “There was no magic, invisible Agent Orange filter at the mouth of the rivers. We have documented proof of its presence in Nha Trang Harbor, 20 years after the war. That evidence has been presented to the VA. The distillation system which produced drinking water and water for the boilers did not remove the dioxin — it enriched it.”
Ongoing studies of veterans’ health have been recommended to not only determine the effects of the herbicide on the veterans, but on their offspring as well.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Give the Vietnam Blue Water Navy Veterans their presumptive rights

In 1977, the first claims of Agent Orange exposure came flooding into the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). But it took 14 years for Congress to actually listen, take action and give our Vietnam veterans the benefits they deserved.
The Agent Orange Act of 1991 was implemented to provide much-needed care to veterans who were exposed to the harmful chemical cocktail Agent Orange. Many of us thought the fight to get the medical attention we deserved was over, but that wasn’t the case. In 2002, the VA amended its initial plan and excluded thousands of “Blue Water” Navy vets -- vets who served right off the coast -- from receiving  our rightful benefits. Because we hadn’t served on land, the VA tried to say we were unlikely to suffer the effects of Agent Orange poisoning.
Even though we didn’t serve on Vietnamese soil, we were still exposed to Agent Orange. In fact, a 2011 study by the National Institute of Medicine found that Blue Water veterans could have been exposed in multiple ways, including via the ships’ water distillation system and through the air. The National Institute of Medicine also stated, “Given the available evidence, the committee recommends that members of the Blue Water Navy should not be excluded from the set of Vietnam-era veterans with presumed herbicide exposure.”

The Vietnam War Is Still Killing People

One of my first beats as a reporter for an alternative newspaper in Boston was to cover the various issues of concern to the Vietnam veterans community in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This was when the federal government—and the traditional vets groups, damn them—were stonewalling the Vietnam guys and calling them losers and claiming that PTSD was a coward's dodge to get on the federal dole. (I heard all of these arguments. It is largely lost to history that the people who took the Vietnam veterans and their issues seriously were elements of what had been the antiwar movement—the people who ran the GI coffeehouses, the alternative press.) 

One of the most frustrating problems was the staggering panoply of physical ailments that arose from proximity to Agent Orange, a Dioxin-laden defoliant that some geniuses decided to ladle onto the landscape of southeast Asia to deprive the enemy of cover. People who got this poison sprayed on them got sick. People who handled it got sick. The government dealt with this crisis the way it dealt with all these crises at the time. It pretended it didn't exist. (Around this time, President Ronald Reagan closed all the VA's psychiatric outreach clinics. Noble cause!) One of my best friends in sportswriting served there in the Air Force, and his job was to load the Agent Orange onto airplanes. He died of liver cancer in 1991.
Consequently, any reference to Agent Orange sets the blog's Spidey-sense tingling. This week there were two of them. The first is a story about how our military efforts in Vietnam are still devastating the Vietnamese. The other is a story about how our government is still stumbling around in the dark.
Dioxin, the primary poison in Agent Orange, lingers in the food chain and in the water supply practically forever. Its effects continue long after initial exposure to it, as the people of Vietnam continue to learn to their horror.

Agent Orange sparks health scare, free cancer checks for State Government weed sprayers

FORMER Victorian Government workers will be offered free health screenings amid fears that the use of poisonous pesticides may have caused illnesses and deaths.
Weed sprayers in regional Victoria have complained of serious health conditions, including cancer and skin problems, after exposure to a range of toxic chemicals including Agent Orange.
Sprayers who worked for former Victorian Government agencies and departments before 1995 will be offered screenings for cancer — soft-skin sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma — and for chloracne, a skin condition.
Sprayers who are tested will be provided with an individual support plan, including access to health services if necessary.
The screenings form part of the State Government’s response to an inquiry into health concerns raised by weed sprayers who worked in the Ballarat region between 1965 and 1995.
Among other chemicals, the sprayers were exposed to 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, two chemicals that when combined, make Agent Orange.

Podcast | Reporters discuss what they've learned talking to veterans affected by Agent Orange

It’s been four decades since the end of the Vietnam War, but the conflict has gotten renewed attention in recent weeks.
Earlier this month, the Institute of Medicine released its final research study into the long-term effects of the toxic herbicide Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans, concluding that we still have no clear understanding of what the health consequences have been.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also recently turned down an effort by Navy veterans – who contend their ships sucked in water contaminated by Agent Orange and used it for cooking and drinking – to get compensation for possible exposure to the chemical.
The VA continues to limit benefits to sailors who can prove that they visited Vietnamese land or that their ships operated in inland rivers, even for just a day.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Give the Vietnam Blue Water Navy Veterans their presumptive rights

In 1977, the first claims of Agent Orange exposure came flooding into the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). But it took 14 years for Congress to actually listen, take action and give our Vietnam veterans the benefits they deserved.
The Agent Orange Act of 1991 was implemented to provide much-needed care to veterans who were exposed to the harmful chemical cocktail Agent Orange. Many of us thought the fight to get the medical attention we deserved was over, but that wasn’t the case. In 2002, the VA amended its initial plan and excluded thousands of “Blue Water” Navy vets -- vets who served right off the coast -- from receiving  our rightful benefits. Because we hadn’t served on land, the VA tried to say we were unlikely to suffer the effects of Agent Orange poisoning.
Even though we didn’t serve on Vietnamese soil, we were still exposed to Agent Orange. In fact, a 2011 study by the National Institute of Medicine found that Blue Water veterans could have been exposed in multiple ways, including via the ships’ water distillation system and through the air. The National Institute of Medicine also stated, “Given the available evidence, the committee recommends that members of the Blue Water Navy should not be excluded from the set of Vietnam-era veterans with presumed herbicide exposure.”
We are asking for your help in urging Congress to pass legislation (House Bill H 969 and Senate Bill S 681)  that will reinstate our right as Vietnam Navy veterans to receive the benefits we deserve for being exposed to this terrible chemical.
Nearly 90,000 Blue Water vets are depending on you. We are dealing with serious health issues that range from cancer to diabetes, and from Parkinson’s to heart disease. Many of these diseases have made it nearly impossible for some of us to get steady work.
Last year, the VA finally extended benefits to Air Force crew members who flew in C-123s after they had been used in Vietnam to spray the toxic cocktail. The VA came to the realization that even the slightest exposure to this chemical had serious effects on a soldier's health. So why are the Navy vets’ pleas being ignored? We breathed the Agent Orange-polluted air that drifted from the coast and drank water sprinkled with the herbicide, and now our bodies are paying the cost.
We ask you to stand with us, and with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Chris Gibson, and demand that the VA assume responsibility for the effects of Agent Orange on Blue Water vets. Please sign our petition asking Congress to pass House Bill H 969 and Senate Bill S 681 and give us our benefits.
SIGN THE PETITION

Doing her part to clean up the environment

Associate Professor Dr Đặng Thị Cẩm Hà, a former chief of the Environmental Biotechnology Department of the Institute of Biotechnology, was honoured with the 2015 Kovalevskaya for her research on environmental protection, particularly technologies to clean oil contamination in different ecological environments, and technologies to treat soil contaminated by dioxin-containing herbicides. She talks with Việt Nam News.
Inner Sanctum: You have researched and joined many scientific projects and received numerous national and international prizes and awards. Which is the project that interested you the most?
Among nearly 150 scientific and technological projects done by me, I was very interested in the project where technologies can treat the soil contaminated by dioxin-containing herbicides and bioremediation.
Although the war ended more than 40 years ago, a lot of areas in Việt Nam still show the after-effects of dioxin. Among them are Phù Cát, Biên Hoà and Đà Nẵng airports. These places have reported the highest polluted of dioxin in the world.

What 'support' do we offer our troops?

The mantra “support the troops” is ubiquitous. You see it daily — on TV, in newspapers and magazines, parades, flyovers, ceremonies honoring veterans and every possible sporting event, including both college and professional.
The Department of Defense has spent $53 million from 2012 to 2015 in advertising and marketing with $6.8 million at professional and college sports events and NASCAR. “Support the troops” — what does it mean?
Vietnam veterans returned home from another war started with lies, having been exposed to Agent Orange and other herbicides.
The human toll on our troops from Agent Orange has been well documented. How did we respond? Denial and neglect seem kind.

Gulf War illnesses were prominent after George H.W. Bush’s Iraq war. Our troops suffered from a number of different illnesses after they returned home. Those who risked their lives for the U.S. were met with the same denial and neglect from us and were unable to get treatment for the various maladies stemming from that war.
And now from author Joseph Hickman we have learned of “The Burn Pits,” which were used from 2001-09 in more than 200 military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq. They were used to dispose of “every type of waste imaginable,” including trash, plastics, medical waste, toxic materials such as tires, batteries, asbestos, pesticides, insulation and even human corpses.
Some of these burn pits were built on ground that had been contaminated by mustard gas and other poisonous stockpiles.
Our veterans exposed to these burn pits are now coming down with cancers, brain tumors, all kinds of respiratory problems and a plethora of other health difficulties. Our response to these veterans continues to be consistent with our past, and denial and neglect defines it.
Our veterans have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq with head injuries/brain damage, depression, PTSD, alcohol and drug problems, and a host of other difficulties.
The suicide rate of these veterans is unbelievable, and for the first time ever, there have been more suicides by the veterans than the number of those actually killed in these wars. Homeless veterans are a visible testament to our denial and neglect.
We send our (mostly) young people to war and to fight and to kill and be killed with hardly a thought other than “support the troops” and a misguided (delusional?) notion that we do it for “freedom” or “God” or whatever other reason we use to justify it. We have sent them to kill between 20 million and 30 million people since World War II and have poisoned and destroyed the people and countries where we have sent them.
And we have poisoned our own troops. Approximately 85,000 of our troops have paid the ultimate sacrifice in that same period. Many of those who return have visible and invisible injuries and trauma and disease, and we respond with our typical denial and neglect.
Surely “support the troops” has to mean more than ostentatious displays of our military prowess at sports events and flyovers. Surely it has to mean more than speeches and parades and occasional “thank-yous” to our veterans for risking their lives. Surely it has to mean more than flags and lapel pins.
Surely “support the troops” has to mean that we take our role of sending our troops to wars much, much more seriously and question whenever the drums of war are starting. Surely “support the troops” has to mean that if we send people off to war, then we have to take responsibility for their care when they return.
Surely “support the troops” means that we need to demand that our sons and daughters get all the mental and physical care they so richly deserve.
— Glen Stovall, Salina, is a father and grandfather.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Is Agent Orange Still Causing Birth Defects?

Vietnam insists that children are suffering today from the lingering effects of the infamous defoliant sprayed by U.S. forces decades ago. Scientists are undecided 
Vietnamese doctors claim that the defoliant Agent Orange, sprayed during the Vietnam War, causes genetic defects in children and grandchildren of people who were exposed.
U.S. animal tests show that genetic damage from dioxin in Agent Orange can be passed on to offspring, but species vary widely in how susceptible they are. No human studies exist.
American scientists say Vietnamese research linking Agent Orange exposure to birth defects is flawed. Authorities there have not allowed American experts to conduct studies in Vietnam.
Without admitting guilt, Congress approved $21 million to help disabled people in Vietnam, but that country says the aid should be far higher.
After he was born with a cleft lip and palate and congenital heart disease, Danh (not his real name) spent his first month in an incubator struggling to breathe. He is now eight years old and thin as a rail. Danh has an endearing smile, but he can’t speak, and his mother, Lien (also a pseudonym), says he is mentally disabled. Recently he sat playing with toy cars at home in Da Nang, Vietnam, while Lien talked wearily about her son’s many needs.
I had been brought to Lien by a private American aid group called Children of Vietnam that works with poor families in Da Nang. We sat drinking tea in a simple room open to the street, chatting over the din of traffic. Family pictures hung next to a portrait of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam’s communist revolutionary leader. Lien’s otherwise soft features hardened when I asked what she thought had caused her son’s disabilities. “Agent Orange did this!” she exclaimed through an interpreter, her eyes flashing with anger.
MORE
 

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Upcoming Agent Orange Town Hall Meetings









We update our meetings regularly on the VVA Calendar
March 29, 2016

King, Wisconsin
Contact Mike Demske,

March 31, 2016
Burlington, Washington
Contact: Pete Sill

April 2, 2016
Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin
Contact Mike Demske  michael.demske@yahoo.com

April 3, 2016
Greenbelt, Maryland
Contact: Bob Hartman loriandbobh@verizon.net

April 16, 2016
Kansas City, Missouri
Contact: Randy Barnett 816-561-8387
  
April 23, 2016
Rockford, Illinois
Contact: Chris Carlson ccarlson324@comcast.net
Dan Loyson

April 23, 2016
Des Moines, Iowa
Contact: Dan Gannon 515-991-5257
Maynard Kaderlik  507-581-6402

May 4, 2016
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Contact Mike Demske  

May 14, 2016
Swartz Creek, Michigan
To preregister by email: agentorange65-75@comcast.net
Contact: Debbie Erwin
Contact: Al Decker

May 14, 2016
Dahlonega, Georgia
Contact: Bill Martin  706-809-2573
Fred Weil 770-313-4328

May 14, 2016
Lancaster , New Hampshire
Contact Russell Wyatt 603-991-9212

May 15, 2016
Port Monmouth, New Jersey
Contact: Mike Eckstein mre1065@gmail.com

May 21, 2016
Livonia, Michigan
Contact: Bob Dew

July 19, 2016
Texas  Amarillo
Contact: Charlie Morris

July 21, 2016
Tucson, Arizona
Contact: Mokie Porter

August 25, 2016
Long Beach, California
Contact: Max Stewart
President of VVA Chapter 756